Stories
Those who are saying the Haditha charges are "politically motivated" have a fundamentally flawed knowledge of military justice
StoriesReuters AlertNet:
The decision to charge four Marine officers accused of failing
to properly investigate the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians was a rare
step and might never have occurred had the media not brought the
incident to light, experts said on Friday.The Marine Corps on Thursday charged four Marines with
unpremeditated murder in the killing of the two dozen men, women and
children on Nov. 19, 2005, in Haditha, Iraq.[..]Four officers — a lieutenant colonel, two captains and a
lieutenant — also were charged, accused of dereliction of duty and
other counts for their role in the aftermath. An investigation
concluded that reporting on the killings up the chain of command was
inaccurate and untimely.“In my opinion the Marine Corps is demonstrating a serious
concern that officers that are in command of combat troops closely
supervise those troops, and when incidents of a suspicious or unusual
nature arise, that they had best look into those,” said Gary Solis, who
teaches the law of war at Georgetown University.“It is rare for officers to be charged. And that four would be
charged when in the prior history of the war only 10 have been charged,
I think that Marine Corps concern is demonstrated,” he said.
Those who are saying the Haditha charges are
“politically motivated” have a fundamentally flawed knowledge of
military justice in general and Marine Corps culture in particular.First, prior to a General Court Martial an “Article 32” hearing
is held, the equivalent of a Grand Jury in civilian terms. FYI, Article
32 refers to the portion of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)
that defines the process. This is, despite what many may think, a fair
process and the accused generally stand a better chance than they would
under similar circumstances in the civilian world (especially since
many of the accused are black or brown). Charges are rarely prefered,
especially in high profile cases, if there is not good evidence for
moving forward. This does not mean they are convicted prior to trial,
but it does reflect what happens (career death) to a military prosector
who pushes a case forward with insufficent evidence. That charges were
preferred means that something out of policy happened.If this were a “show trial”, as many are suggesting, then
the charges would have been something like manslaughter or negligent
homicide, not murder. Unlike police departments, for instance, the
honor and reputation of the Marine Corps is more important than the
individual reputations of Marines who have brought dishonor to the
Corps.
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Sadly, No! » The Pluperfect Malkin
StoriesHERE’S A GREAT RUNDOWN OF THE WINGNET’S QUEEN BEE : MICHELLE MALKIN
FROM THE EQUALLY GREAT “SADLY, NO”
A drama in three leanly-wrought acts:
Jimmy Carter math
By Michelle Malkin
December 19, 2006 11:26 AMJimmy Carter says he has signed more than 100,000 books during his book tour.
Book publishing insider Brad Miner’s B.S. detector has been activated.
Update: Whoops.
A work in progress:
Retraction: “Jamil Hussein”
By Michelle Malkin
December 18, 2006 11:04 AMA few minutes ago, I posted an update to the Jamil Hussein story. My source just informed me that he had incorrect information. I’m removing the post. I’ll update as soon as I know more.
Update: Marc Danziger reports the results of his investigation.
A spoiler for those who wish to skip ahead: The Iraqi police officer’s correct name is Jamail Hussein, not ‘Jamil.’ So, in regard to Malkin & Co.’s weeks-long hurricane tantrum accusing the Associated Press of using a nonexistent source in order to help spread enemy propaganda: Whoops.
Also, previously: Whoops.
A treatise on fairness:
Not everyone’s a winner
By Michelle Malkin
December 18, 2006 09:29 AMIn all its breathless purple prose about the “new digital democracy” and the “unmediated free-for-all” on YouTube, Time magazine ignores certain citizen journalists and overlooks those who have been banned from participating for expressing unpopular views.
Above: certain citizen journalists
Oh, we remember some things as well. 2006 has been a remarkable year for ol’ Michelle, filled as it’s been with the suicide of one of her targets, an admirer’s arrest for serial domestic terrorism, a lot of jumping up and down and yelling, and steaming plates of crow apparently served with onion rings.
Let us be among the first to congratulate the intrepid citizen-journalists of the WingNet.
PS: After Michelle bit the onion ring, it resembled a crescent…a crescent…a crescent…
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"Guantanamo has brought shame to our nation"
StoriesProtests worldwide mark the 5-year anniversary of Guantanamo
By Carol Rosenberg and Lesley Clark
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
From anti-Iraq war mom Cindy Sheehan in Cuba to protesters in a
Washington, D.C., courthouse, demonstrators fanned out across the globe
Thursday to protest America’s five-year-old experiment in offshore
incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The protests came as a top Democrat said Congress would scrutinize
the Bush administration’s handling of the Guantanamo prison camps with
an eye toward closing the facility.
“The new Democratic majority has every intention of conducting
vigorous oversight on these issues and getting answers on the
administration’s detention practices,” said House Majority Leader Steny
Hoyer, D-Md. “The administration has said it hopes to close the
facility at Guantanamo, an objective that I share.”
About 100 protesters were arrested in a Washington courthouse, and
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon used his first news conference to
likewise call for closure of the remote U.S. prison in southeast Cuba.
“Gitmo prison is a source of shame. No more torture in our name,”
chanted protesters in Cuba-controlled Guantanamo, where Sheehan marched
with a dozen or so international protesters on the other side of a
minefield from the U.S. Navy base.
Amnesty International and other human rights groups choreographed
the daylong protests from Europe to Australia to the Americas on five
years to the day when the Pentagon opened the detention and
interrogation center for international captives airlifted from
Afghanistan.
The protests achieved their desired results.
News photographs of orange jumpsuit-clad protesters – on the march,
on their knees or in chains – splashed across the Internet from such
far-flung cities as Melbourne, Australia, Budapest, Hungary, and
Thessaloniki, Greece.
The Pentagon argues that the prison camps are a war-on-terror
necessity. About 395 men and teens are held there, some of whom could
soon face war-crimes trials, once the Defense Department unveils its
new design for military commissions.
At the U.S.-controlled corner of Guantanamo, the day passed
peacefully and without notice, although 14 captives were listed as
hunger strikers. Five were being fed through tubes in their noses under
military medical protocols for forced feedings.
A minefield and no-man’s land separated the chants of Sheehan and her fellow protesters from the 45-square-mile U.S. Navy base.
“It’s a normal work day here,” reported U.S. Army Col. Lora Tucker
by e-mail. It passed with “nothing special going on to mark the
anniversary,” she added. “We are just continuing our mission of safe,
humane care of the detainees.”
Not so in downtown Washington, not far from Congress, where about
100 demonstrators were arrested in a federal courthouse for waving
signs and wearing T-shirts that said “Stop Torture” and “Shut Down
Guantanamo.”
They were led away in plastic handcuffs.
Earlier, hundreds of foes of U.S. detention policy fanned out on the
steps of the Supreme Court, some in detainee-style jumpsuits and black
hoods, others in mock military garb, and staged some political theater
of their own in the frigid winter weather.
“Guantanamo has brought shame to our nation,” Larry Cox, executive
director of Amnesty International, told the crowd from a lectern
entwined with barbed wire.
Behind him stood dozens of protesters, some with black tape across
their mouths, others bearing the names of detainees. “There’s no
evidence that we have been made safer,” said Cox, “but there is growing
evidence that the moral authority of the United States has been
severely diminished.”
Rosenberg reported from Miami, Clark from Washington.
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BILL KRISTOL "But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction"
StoriesWhen you hear level-headed people say that General Kristol and the Neocons have been wrong about literally everything for the past five years, they’re not kidding. Anonymous Liberal — guest-posting for Glenn at Unclaimed Territory — gives us a small sample of the predictions made by TIME Magazine’s new “star” columnist:
On March 17, 2003, on the eve of our invasion of Iraq, Bill Kristol wrote the following:
We are tempted to comment, in these last days before
the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war
itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of
mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq,
and expose the truth about Saddam’s regime. It will produce whatever
effects it will produce on neighboring countries and on the broader war
on terror. We would note now that even the threat of war against Saddam
seems to be encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and
Saudi Arabia, and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda
from other governments in the region. It turns out it really is better
to be respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite
sensitivity, other people’s pain. History and reality are about to
weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.Now, you would think that being so incredibly wrong about such
an important subject might hurt your career prospects, and that would
probably be true in any other field. But in the world of Washington
punditry, being consistently and catastrophically wrong about
everything is apparently not an obstacle to advancement. Read more…
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Se, Chuck Hagel Calls Lieberman's Bullshit
Stories By:
John Amato @
10:08 AM – PST
Chuck
Hagel plastered Holy Joe on Meet the Press this morning and it’s about
time somebody called him on his garbage. Lieberman got on his soapbox
and tried to tell us that Bush’s implementation of the McCain Doctrine
is our only hope in Iraq and then throws his grand children
into the ring. He’s even more offensive today than usual if that’s
possible because he uses the 9/11 attacks and says we’re fighting the
same enemy in Iraq that attacked our country. He knows that’s a right
wing talking point that’s just not true—yet he’ll try to scare people
anyway, Shame on you!
Download (3913) | Play (3636) 
Download (2204) | Play (2857) (rough transcript)
Hagel: I am not nor any member of Congress that I’m aware of Tim, is advocating defeat, that’s ridiculous and I’m
offended that any responsible member of Congress or anyone else would
even suggest such a thing…Sen. Lieberman talks about his children and
grandchildren, we all have children and grandchildren—he doesn’t have a
market on that nor do any of my colleagues. We’re all concerned about the future of this country…
Lieberman jumps on the Iran bandwagon that Bush threw out last week
and is setting up support for an American attack on them. It seems to
be just a matter of time and many of us have been speaking out against
it. Congress needs to push back–hard on it. Hagel calls into question
Joe’s competency (yea) as well he should. When is Lieberman going to
look into the Katrina nightmare again?
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Bobby Hamilton, longtime NASCAR driver, dead at 49
StoriesESPN.com
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
Bobby Hamilton, the longtime NASCAR
driver who won the 2001 Talladega 500 and was the 2004 Craftsman
Truck Series champion, died Sunday of cancer, said Liz Allison, a
family friend who co-hosted a radio show with Hamilton. He was 49.
Hamilton was at home with his family when he died, said Allison,
the widow of former NASCAR star Davey Allison.
“The thing I loved about Bobby Sr. so much is that he treated
everybody the same,” Allison said. “It didn’t matter if you were
one of the drivers he competed against or a fan he’d never laid
eyes on before.
“He didn’t have a pretentious bone in his body. I think that’s
why people were drawn to him. He was just very real and had a way
of relating to everyone.”
Hamilton was diagnosed with head and neck cancer in February. A
malignant growth was found when swelling from dental surgery did
not go down.
“NASCAR is saddened by the passing of Bobby Hamilton,” said
Jim Hunter, NASCAR’s vice president of communications. “Bobby was
a great competitor, dedicated team owner and friend. Our thoughts
and prayers go out to all of the Hamilton family.”
Hamilton raced in the first three truck races of the season,
with a best finish of 14th at Atlanta Motor Speedway, before
turning over the wheel to his son, Bobby Hamilton Jr. The senior
Hamilton then started chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
By August, he had returned to work at Bobby Hamilton Racing in
Mount Juliet, about 20 miles east of Nashville, and doctors
indicated his CAT scans looked good. But microscopic cancer cells
remained on the right side of his neck.
“Cancer is an ongoing battle, and once you are diagnosed you
always live with the thought of the disease in your body,”
Hamilton said in an article posted on NASCAR’s Web site last month.
“It is the worst thing you could ever imagine.”
Hamilton, born in Nashville in 1957, drove in all of NASCAR’s
top three divisions, making 371 starts and winning four times in
what is now the Nextel Cup series. He won 10 truck races and one
Busch Series race.
“I love what I do; I love this business,” he said in March
2006 when he disclosed that he had cancer. “NASCAR has been good
to me, and I just don’t feel comfortable when I am not around it.”
Hamilton’s Nextel Cup wins, in addition to Talladega, came at
Phoenix, Rockingham and Martinsville. His best season was in 1996
when he finished ninth in the points standings. He won his first
Cup race that year, at Phoenix.
Hamilton drove in the top-level NASCAR series from 1989-05,
earning $14.3 million and racing to 20 top-five finishes.
He became a full-time driver-owner in the truck series in 2003.
The news of Hamilton’s death caught friends by surprise.
“You could always count on Bobby,” seven-time NASCAR champion Richard
Petty said in a statement. “He was just that type of guy. He never let
you down and gave you everything he had on-and-off the track. His
family is in our hearts and prayers.”
Nextel Cup driver Sterling Marlin, a fellow Tennessee native, said a lot
of people didn’t know Hamilton well even though he was generous
enough to give someone the shirt off his back.
“He always had a good vision,” Marlin said in Daytona where
testing begins Monday. “He always wanted to do things his own way,
so he became his own boss, got into the trucks, and it worked out
well for him.”
According to The Tennessean, a public visitation will be held Tuesday
from 5-8 p.m. at Hermitage Memorial Gardens in Nashville, Tenn. Private
funeral services will be conducted Wednesday.
The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Victory Junction Gang Camp or the American Cancer Society.
Another NASCAR favorite, 1973 Winston Cup champion Benny
Parsons, was diagnosed with cancer in his left lung in July. He was
checked into intensive care last week at a North Carolina hospital.
In addition to Bobby Jr., Hamilton is survived by wife Lori and
a granddaughter.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
MATTHEWS: Melanie, tell me why Joe Wilson and you do not wish him to testify in the Scooter Libby perjury trial
StoriesMelanie Sloan trashes Libby’s reasons for wanting Wilson to Testify
By:
John Amato @
7:15 AM – PST
On
Hardball Wednesday, the topic: Why shouldn’t Joe Wilson testify in the
Scooter Libby trial if he’s been so outspoken about the Plame case.
Matthews erroneously slimes Wilson and says:
MATTHEWS: But trying to quash the subpoena. It would
seem to me, as a non-lawyer—I say for the millionth time, an admission
you have got something you don‘t want to talk about.
Chris needs to brush up on his law. Having a staff and resident
pundits around for information at his finger tips—you’d figure they
would know Wilson isn’t needed on the witness stand because Libby is
facing charges of of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false
statements. What light would Joe be able to shed that could add
anything to Scooter’s case? This is a ploy by Libby’s team to get
Wilson on the stand before his civil suit hits. Melanie Sloan had to
call into the show and set these “experts” straight.
MATTHEWS: Melanie, tell me why Joe Wilson and you do not wish him
to testify in the Scooter Libby perjury trail. full transcript via MSNBC:
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I understand your consternation
StoriesI understand your consternation as this President has done
absolute squat to earn the confidence of a small minority of us who saw
these wars of choice as the disasters they were to become, long before
they unfolded. Now that a majority of Americans have awakened to this
plain fact albeit, five years too late, we (those few of us who were on
the beam from the very beginning) need to sift through and eliminate
any emotion, hate and distrust for this man.
Only a measured,
rational, realistic and a well thought out approach, sans emotion, will
bring us through this tragedy as unscathed as may be possible
considering the hole we have dug and that much blood is left to be
spilled. The problem with this war and how it was initiated and fought
both at the front and at home has been adversely and grossly effected
negatively by the emotions Americans have placed before logic and
reason.
The Bush/Rove machine have used emotion to carry the
country into war and those very few opposed have used emotion in
failing to either present a solid case in opposition to or prevent this
debacle. We need to back off the emotional propaganda/infighting by
both sides as this energy clouds reason, distorts the issues and
divides the nation allowing the current trending to continue unabated
and spiraling perilously out of control.
My hope of hopes is
that Mr. Bush will look into the faces of the wounded to soften his
resolve and make the needed changes to bring our kids home before any
more are killed or disabled. Then again this may stiffen the Presidents
spine like Hitler brushing the face of pre-teens as the Allies/Russians
bared down outside the gates of Berlin.
Frank Zappa
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For their own sake, they need to impeach him
StoriesThe Osterley Times: Impeach him!
There are times when it’s hard to describe Bush’s stubbornness and
sheer pig-headedness in the stark terms that it deserves. The Baker
Report has offered him a way out of Iraq, but he seems determined to
ignore the advice given to him by that bipartisan committee and seems
to think one last push will bring him the victory that has so far
eluded him.
Let’s look at this carefully. James T Baker, the man
who is as responsible as any other for getting Bush elected after he
guided him through the Florida recount, has said enough is enough. Bush
is planning on ignoring him.
Colin Powell,
Bush’s former Secretary of State, has said the US is losing the war in
Iraq and that the sending of more troops is no longer the answer. Bush
is planning on ignoring him.
Gen. John P. Abizaid, his top Middle East commander, has announced his retirement and other generals have signalled that they do not agree with Bush’s plans to increase troop levels. Bush is planning on ignoring them.
The
change in tactic here is staggering. This is the same President who, up
until now, has hidden behind these same Generals insisting that he is
following their lead and that they are in charge of the military
campaign. Now that they are saying something that he doesn’t want to
hear, Bush is planning on ignoring them.
Even Blair and Bush now appear to be showing cracks
regarding the way forward as Blair has embraced the Baker report that
Bush seems determined to ignore. Bush will now ignore Blair.
Astonishingly,
Bush appears to be still in the thrall of the neo-conservatives who
have led him into his present quagmire, and he appears to be still
listening to them as they promise a way out through victory. Indeed,
they have even prepared a paper on the subject entitled: Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq.
The
clear implication being that victory is there for the taking if the US
simply apply themselves more. The old arguments surrounding Vietnam are
once more being dusted down.
At this juncture we are looking at
a President more isolated than any in recent memory. His Generals, his
ex-Secretary of Defence, has father’s friends and the British PM who
has supported him to such an extent that he has earned himself the
sobriquet “poodle” all now oppose what he plans to do next. And yet
Bush, a man who has never served in any military capacity, now plans on
ignoring them all.
Of course, if one reads Frederick W Kagan’s
paper one will find that, like most neo-cons, he is scathing about the
way their plan for world domination was carried out rather than finding
any fault with the grandiose plan itself.
The truth, of course,
is that neo-conservatism died in Lebanon this summer. The idea that the
US could shape any region it wanted through the application of military
force was laid bare with Hizbullah’s victory over Israel.
However, these buggers are not for lying down. They are certainly not for admitting defeat. A defeat that all but the most stubborn of conservatives now accepts as fact.
What
does one do when a President ignores the advice of everyone around him
and insists on sending more troops into harms way? Troops enlisted from
the poorest quarters of his nation that do not include his children or
the children of the elite neo-cons who support his insane new policy?
We
are looking at a President who simply will not accept defeat and is
willing to allow the children of others to die rather to admit what
even his own supporters have admitted. He has lost. Even Ralph Peters has conceded that fact, although his reasoning for why they lost is simply garbage.
The state of affairs is truly grim:
But
the president has not only lost the “battle for hearts and minds”
across the Arab world, he’s lost it across the United States. The
people of Bapchule and Oxford no longer believe his words or trust his
judgment. Virtually everything he ever said to them about the war —
from “Mission Accomplished” to “absolutely, we’re winning” — has been
wrong.Once,
Americans might have shared his vision of a free, self-governing Iraq,
but not any more. He has squandered their trust and betrayed their
patriotism. The parents of Thibodaux and Cheektowaga no longer want to
sacrifice their children to a lost cause.
Bush
is now insisting, despite his defeat at the polls, that more young
Americans must die for a cause that all but he can see is lost.
There is only one thing to do when faced with such stubbornness. Impeach him.
For the sake of young soldiers being asked to die for a lost cause, impeach him.
The
US now has no other choice. This is an isolated President embarking on
a suicidal course, who has lost the support of even his own side and
who has nothing to lose as he will never again face re-election.
Polite
intervention from Baker and his colleagues has not worked. Blair
distancing himself from the project has not worked. Powell speaking out
has not worked.
There is only one course left open. Impeach him.
The
most incompetent President in living memory needs to be saved from
himself. This should now be done if Republicans are to hold on to any
chance of re-election for the next decade. The party that allows this
man to do what he is planning to do deserve the disapprobation of the
entire nation.
For their own sake, they need to impeach him.
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The New York Herald Sun 